The Colbert Video, Embedded

That was nice...although I thought you should have played along a little more with the funny stuff. In any case, Colbert or Stewart isn't exactly the place to make detailed points about issues.

One thing which I was hoping to hear from you about is the loss of scientific innovation in industry. While the government is undoubtedly responsible for the lion's share of innovation, there is a lot of valuable input in terms of basic science that has come from industry in the past (consider Bell Labs and IBM which produced scores of Nobel Laureates). Unfortunately this input has crawled to a halt. Consider the latest merger of Pfizer and Wyeth which may lay off tens of thousands of scientists. The big managers don't care about scientific innovation. When they run out of it they will just swallow up other companies which will purportedly have it. But this state of events won't last too long. In the end there won't be any new drugs in the pipeline, and it will be too late for a turnaround. I wonder what you think about this state of affairs.

Off-topic, but Dennis Overbye's article on science and values in yesterday's NYT is interesting.

One thing I've been wondering about Colbert interviews: Do they prepare you for the crazy things he's gonna say, or do they just throw you into the interview cold? I've always wondered how much warning his interviewees receive.